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Torn Paper Collage & Working with Leaf Prints – The 100 Day Project, days 31-45

I had a pretty big slump most of last week or so and wasn’t feeling the love for this project, hence the lack of update. I still haven’t missed a day, but there were some days where I did a pretty minuscule amount of work on it. I’ve been spinning while I watch an episode of something-or-other on Netflix in the evenings, which has been helpful in keeping me from feeling like I was stuck with only one kind of project.

While sifting through some older monoprints, I found some leaf prints I made a while back but never did anything with because for fear of ruining them or inadvertently covering up the best parts. I decided it was time to do something about that.

I had some scrap tyvek and used it to experiment with cutting stencils. The first stencil was a big floppy thing that taught me a thing or two about how not to cut a stencil out of a thin material. Too many leaves connecting to a skinny stem made it a little frustrating to use. Still, the effect was pretty neat. I also managed to keep the cut-out section in once piece and used it as a mask.

The next stencil was a little easier to use — smaller in scale, and the leaves don’t connect to the stem. Once I had stenciled it half to death, I drew a face in profile — on deli paper because I had never drawn a face in profile before, ever. That turned out to be for the best because I botched it the first few times. Once I had a half-decent version I collaged it down on the piece and finished it. (And I managed not to entirely cover up the redbud leaf in the lower right corner, which was my favorite thing about the print.)

I’ve done a couple of two-page spreads in my journal as well. One I forgot to take a photo of (and it’s dark now) so that one will have to wait. (You’re not missing much. It was sort of forgettable.)

The other one I’m pretty pleased with. I had been wanting to do torn paper collage in a less abstract way than what I’ve been doing, but I was a little hazy on how to go about this without having weird, jaggedy edges confusing the image. I put down pieces of monoprints in the background (on the left is a print of most of a big northern catalpa leaf) and then started looking for advice on how to make trees that actually look like trees.

I found the information I was looking for in the form of a tutorial where the finished piece looked sort of like a much-better-realized version of what I was thinking of doing. It was really helpful, and I want to do more of this. I did my best not to make a total copy of it:

I can’t wait to do more collage like this. I’m definitely excited about my 100-day project again.